Services and response from mobile service providers has become a fact of life in most metropolitan areas of the U.S. These mobile services providers make available in their operational areas a broad range of services to customers. The offered services include taxis, ambulance, fire, maintenance, security, law enforcement, and the like.
A vehicle dispatch system is used to arrange for the efficient allocation of available mobile service providers. In a taxi service, for example, the customers requiring transportation are matched with available vehicles in the taxi fleet. Available vehicles are allocated in such a manner as to maximize the volume of service the system is able to provide, while minimizing the delay from a customer request to service delivery. Currently, vehicle dispatching is accomplished using a traditional central dispatching system.
In a traditional dispatch system, a fleet of vehicles is dispersed in an operating area. The position of each of the vehicles is tracked at a manned central base. A dispatcher, or dispatchers, at the central base control the allocation and use of the vehicles in the fleet. Typically, the central base dispatcher monitors and communicates with the vehicles at frequent intervals. In most dispatch systems, the position of each of the vehicles is superimposed over a simplified map. This provides the dispatcher with a graphical display of the position of each of the vehicles with respect to the underlying map of the operational area. Hence, traditional dispatch systems require a central base infrastructure sufficient to provide a working environment, i.e. office space, for at least one dispatcher. Furthermore, traditional dispatch systems require enough office space to accommodate bulky equipment for monitoring and communicating with the fleet of vehicles. Such equipment includes, for example, maps, grease boards, graphical displays, and the like. Thus, traditional dispatch systems require not only personnel, i.e. dispatchers, but also require significant office space.
The dispatcher, in addition to tracking the position of each of the fleet vehicles, must know where to dispatch a vehicle when service is requested. The dispatcher must know the location of the caller. The geographic position of the caller may be obtained, for example, by an automatic number identification/automatic location identification (ANI/ALI) system used in conjunction with a geographically indexed data base or geo-file. By accessing an AVL system, the dispatcher is able to visually determine which of the displayed vehicles is positioned near or nearest to the location of the caller. If the above geographic locations systems are not available, the dispatcher must determine the caller's location verbally, by conversing with the caller. The dispatcher then decides which available vehicle, out of the fleet of vehicles, can most quickly respond to the caller's request. The dispatcher may also be required to take into account vehicle impeding barriers, such as traffic jams, road construction, geographic features, and the like. Furthermore, the dispatcher may be required to consider the relative skills and experience levels of the operators of the vehicles. Such dispatcher decisions must be made within moments of receiving the dispatch request.
Due to the number of variables present in the allocation and dispatching process, dispatchers frequently make errors. That is, dispatchers dispatch a vehicle which is not the nearest or the fastest responding vehicle. Such errors occur even when the dispatchers are aware of geographic and or vehicle impeding barriers present at or near the reported event. The occurrence of errors is increased when dispatch decisions are made under rigorous time constraints. Hence, even well trained dispatchers may mistakenly dispatch the wrong vehicle or a slower responding vehicle to a reported event. Such mistakes can adversely affect profitability in commercial applications, and can cost lives in emergency vehicle response applications.
Thus, a need exists for a system which swiftly and automatically dispatches the most appropriate of a plurality of vehicles to a dispatch request. A further need exists for a dispatch system which does not require the personnel and office space associated with traditional dispatch systems.